Yes, it is a calculated result and not a measured result. Then again, a direct calculation is better than a computer simulation any day… so I’d say it’s over to the Nintendo Kids to work out a comeback.

The bottom line is that adding a bit of CO2 to some damp air makes the whole works cooler, not warmer.

It’s technical, but not too hard to follow if you’ve had some chemistry and physics.

Bottom line is that the prior assumption of warming from CO2 is wrong.
How you say “Ooops”…

I think someone needs to learn that a mixture of things is different from them in isolation. Like alloys.

Maybe someone needs to tell the trees. This video was one I reached after following a link from Scarlet Pumpernickel. In it, Freeman Dyson basically says ~” Real observations matter, we are presently doing them badly, and when you do measure, you find it’s all about the trees, if you don’t understand them, the computer models are useless’.

I’ve moved Scarlet Pumpernickels comment from the Ozone Hole thread to here (it’s the first comment below with part 2 of this video in it). While that part does talk about ozone loss as the stratosphere cools, I think if fits better with this new posting. In it, Freeman Dyson points out that CO2 causes the Stratosphere to cool. That was a loose end for me in the posting about tropospheric convection. I knew that the upper atmosphere cooled (thermosphere / mesosphere) when solar UV output dropped. I knew that the troposphere had convective dominance. That still left the Stratosphere in the middle. This completes the set. So now we have:

Sun takes a break and UV plunges.
Lower UV means a colder mesosphere and thermosphere, and lower ozone in the Stratosphere.
Lower Ozone means the 11 micron IR window “opens”.
Stratosphere cools as well (and the whole upper atmosphere gets more compressed) so heat transport will be more effective.
All the cooling cuts water vapor as it makes rain / freezes into noctilucent clouds.
Troposphere convects a bit more rapidly (the “gustier” and “blustery” quality I’ve noted) and we have a net large increase in heat flow out, or cooling.

CO2 cools damp air. CO2 cools the stratosphere. The sun cools the stratosphere, mesosphere, and troposphere when the UV level drops
(and thus must also warm them when UV rises…)

All observable and testable / measurable (or already observed in most cases).

27 Responses to CO2 Cools Damp Air

The ocean holds all the energy. You can see from the video the movement around the earth. Its funny when people say this might stop or something lol, it’s really all to do with geography. It’s stopped in the past because contents moved and passages opened and closed, not because some trace gas changed. It was warmer 6000 and 3000 years ago then today, much much more warmer and everything is still here today.

“Do the Earth’s volcanoes emit more CO2 than human activities? Research findings indicate that the answer to this frequently asked question is a clear and unequivocal, “No.” Human activities, responsible for some 36,300 million metric tons of CO2 emissions in 2008 [Le Quéré et al., 2009], release at least a hundred times more CO2 annually than all the world’s degassing subaerial and submarine volcanoes (Gerlach, 2010).

The half dozen or so published estimates of the global CO2 emission rate for all degassing subaerial and submarine volcanoes lie in a range from 132 million (minimum) to 378 million (maximum) metric tons per year (Gerlach, 1991; Varekamp et al., 1992; Allard, 1992; Sano and Williams, 1996; Marty and Tolstikhin, 1998; Kerrick, 2001). If estimate medians and author-preferred estimates of these studies are used to lessen the influence of outlier estimates, the range is restricted to about 150-270 million metric tons of CO2 per year. The current anthropogenic CO2 emission rate of some 36,300-million metric tons of CO2 per year is about 100 to 300 times larger than these estimated ranges for global volcanic CO2 emissions.

In recent times, about 50-60 volcanoes are normally active on the Earth’s subaerial terrain. One of these is Kīlauea volcano in Hawaii, which has an annual baseline CO2 output of about 3.1 million metric tons per year [Gerlach et al., 2002]. It would take a huge addition of volcanoes to the subaerial landscape—the equivalent of an extra 11,700 Kīlauea volcanoes—to scale up the global volcanic CO2 emission rate to the anthropogenic CO2 emission rate. Similarly, scaling up the volcanic rate to the current anthropogenic rate by adding more submarine volcanoes would require the addition of over 100 mid-oceanic ridge systems to the sea floor.

Global volcanic CO2 emission estimates are uncertain, but there is little doubt that the anthropogenic CO2 emission rate is more than a hundred times greater than the global volcanic CO2 emission rate. ”

“Given that mid-ocean ridges constitute the largest volcanic system on Earth, this discovery has important implications for the global carbon cycle which have yet to be explored.”

So the Science is not settled with Volcanoes either. As they are being very naive of undersea volcanoes, as we hardly go down there. The deepest spot on earth the Challenger deep, how many times have we even looked, and it’s just one tiny spot.

We really don’t know if the undersea volcanoes are more active today then in the past? A supervolcano could be erupting with very little knowledge, eg a flood basalt eruption. We know recently there have been substantial pyroclastic flows under the Arctic. And http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070222160443.htm Antarctica has systems of geothermal activity as well which are hidden from the ice.

Thank you, thank you for your efforts to restore sanity to science and rescue that sacred path from the “scientific-technological elite” that former President Eisenhower warned about in the farewell address on 17 Jan 1961:

“The chamber voted 255-172 . .. to nullify the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations and the scientific finding they’re based on. No Republicans opposed the bill, but 19 Democrats broke ranks with their party to support the measure.”

I think this whole picture is starting to come together nicely.
Moving in the right direction towards understanding the ANALOG world so I guess we need Analog Computers to model the real world :-)

A tide-predicting machine was a special-purpose mechanical analog computer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, constructed and set up to predict the ebb and flow of sea tides and the irregular variations in their heights – which change in mixtures of rhythms, that never (in the aggregate) repeat themselves exactly.

An analog computer is a form of computer that uses the continuously-changeable aspects of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities to model the problem being solved. In contrast, digital computers represent varying quantities incrementally, as their numerical values change.

Congratulations. E.M. and ya’ all. You’re on a roll. Send the info far and wide. I am doing my part. By the way, how much of “The Chilling Stars” is included in these lessons; I am enjoing the read. I searched for Svensmarck (sp), E.M., and did not find much. What do you think? Does his theory “fit”?

In the past the sea was full of Iron, the bacteria ate it up, and made Oxygen. That’s why in Western Australia (one of the oldest geological place on earth) you find large amounts of Iron, because in those days, the sea was full of iron, and there was lots of CO2 in the air and not much O2.

So basically these bacteria can handle the CO2, they just consume more Iron.

“Overall solar activity has been increasing over the past century, so the researchers believe it is possible that during this period, the Sun has been contributing a small cooling effect, rather than a small warming effect as had previously been thought.

Professor Joanna Haigh, the lead author of the study who is Head of the Department of Physics and member of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, said: “These results are challenging what we thought we knew about the Sun’s effect on our climate. However, they only show us a snapshot of the Sun’s activity and its behaviour over the three years of our study could be an anomaly.

“We cannot jump to any conclusions based on what we have found during this comparatively short period and we need to carry out further studies to explore the Sun’s activity, and the patterns that we have uncovered, on longer timescales. However, if further studies find the same pattern over a longer period of time, this could suggest that we may have overestimated the Sun’s role in warming the planet, rather than underestimating it.”

Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, the Director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, added: “We know that the Earth’s climate is affected both by human activity and by natural forces and today’s study improves our understanding of how the Sun influences our climate. Studies like this are vital for helping us to create a clear picture of how our climate is changing and through this, to work out how we can best protect our planet.””

Maybe they need to check their friends in Denmark and Israel and find the clear connection between temperature and cosmic rays, on a chart that has more correlation than Al Gore’s crazy chart.

People do effect their environment, increase temperatures by the Urban Heat Island Effect and cool down temperatures due to agriculture but these effects are local, not global.

In order to compensate for the 0.6 degree Celsius aledged temperature rise over the past century you only need move 100 meters higher in elevation or move 150 km to the South when you live on the NH or North if you live o the SH.

It is impossible to consider such small temperature increases as a threat let alone a reason to shut down our economies.

Despite this common sense approach the current UN process seems to be unstoppable.

This subject has gone beyond science a long time ago and science won’t stop the process.

While we are blogging, twittering and watching the televised propaganda our civilization is destroyed by incredible government spending, the costly climate change investments, immigration, wars and now the severe undermining of our defensive capacity.

We are under siege and we have the enemy within.

What we see today is the First World Revolution and we, humanity, is the target.

I really wonder how long it will take before people understand what is at stake here.

We have forgotten all the bloody confrontations from the past that gave us our freedom and prosperity.

We allow all this to happen and we are now squandering our costly time on details as the real case is as clear as can be.

We are quickly running out of time.

The current protests in the ME and NA and the war in Libya have been staged and undertaken to hike oil prices and drive the West over the cliff.

FT yesterday mentioned 175 us dollar oil prices.

How long do you think it will take before the next crises takes off?

Are we going to pay the price at the pump or are we going to take the thugs from office who sold us out?

This has been well modeled using the work of two men: John Tyndall and Henri Le Chatelier. You can see all of this at: http:GlobalWarmingNotes.i8.com where this is all documented, modeled and explained in terms you can teach to junior high school students including a demonstration “experiment” you can set up with empty polycarbonate cola bottles, three lab thermometers, one pint of “Liquid Plummer” 100 grams of dessicant like Drierite(tm) or make it yourself in an oven and you will see how the atmosphere works. Why we pay any attention to these tired, old men armchair “scientists” who do no work and make no sense escapes me.

For ideas, science and humor see The Two Minute Conservative at: http://adrianvance.blogspot.com Includes an audio archive for broadcast and is daily on Kindle

I was mostly just looking at the CO2 and solar UV modulation here. I figured folks were pretty well familiar with the GCR issues and put the edit point there. I’m fairly certain it is real and important, but as we are just now getting the answeres to “how much”, it is a tiny bit more ‘theoretical’. The other things I’ve listed are pretty much “measured” or directly calculated from measured things.

I know. It’s an arbitrary edit point. But the fact is you CAN directly calculate the heat moved to the trop of the troposphere via water by looking at the precipitation and you CAN observe carbonic gas in the lab (so we know it is real) and you CAN measure the CO2 sucking power of trees and we have measured the UV impact on the upper atmosphere (it just happened and was observed) and …

Yet Svensmark is still a “theory”. Though, I suspect, only for a small while longer. I suspect we are ‘one published paper” away from a “measured quantity”. Then we have the mechanism “fleshed out” by which that solar variation causes the surface temps to change (not just the stratosphere on up). So in the atmosphere profile here I’ve focused on “what happens above the troposphere” and only said “convection dominates” in the troposphere; but not gone into the bit where Svensmark modulates the clouds that causes the variation in rain and convection… and total insolation to the ground that gets convected away. But if I had a better summary link on it, and if it were “shown” rather than “theory” I’d likely have stuck it in. It’s going to be a big deal, IMHO.

http://www.climate4you.com/ClimateAndClouds.htm#DiagramCloud cover change observed
Since clouds have a net cooling effect on climate, the above would imply (Svensmark 1998) that the estimated reduction of cosmic ray flux during the 20th century (Marsh and Svensmark 2000) might have been responsible for a significant part of the observed warming. Since 1983, the cooling cover of low clouds have decreased from 29% to about 25% (see below). During the same period the net change of warming high clouds have been small (see below).

What I noticed first was that the cloud reflection is shown as a constant. What happens if it’s a variable as per Svensmark? It is of magnetude 77 in the chart. The difference between the two IR arrows (the fat beige ones on the right) is about 12 (Miskolczi) to 26 ( K & T). So a modest variation in cloud can easily offset the IR “imbalance” and it is a minor PART of the IR that is supposed to be the CO2 change impact.

So it’s not like I completely ignored him, it’s just “one link down” and kind of spread around a few places…

@R. de Haan:

The answer to your question hangs on what happens in D.C. in the next day (or a few). The Replicrats and Demicans are arguing over which penny, or maybe two, per dollar to “cut” out of the Federal Budget. It needs to have cuts of the size of a quarter… If the end result is, as the Dimocrat representative on the Talking Heads program put it “balaced cuts and increased revenues” (i.e. screw cuts, we’ll just tax more) then we’re headed to oblivion rather fast as this is the “last stop” before revolt.

If the Tea Party folks can’t get the Republicrats to actually KILL a PROGRAM and at best can get a few things slightly massaged by a penny on the dollar, there is no hope. IMHO. Then it will be world form “by other means”.

So, “we’ll see” …

(And hold off just a bit on comments about the budget… I’ve got a better thread for that “in the works”…)

@Interesting Connections:

You mean like they were in the 1970’s? Yes, I do. But at least the ‘don’t use coal and oil, tax it’ part will be undermined…

Wheresoever there is CO2 around, there is cold around: From dried ice to baking soda and soda beverages.
Mix ammonium bicarbonate with baking soda, add some water and you´ll see it.
The real issue is: One thing is chemistry, another politics and bribery…..

Insects see the world totally differently to us, imagine they were the master race, they would be ignoring colour and studying everything in UV http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTQ1NDA1OTY=.html Visible light would be the least studied frequency, while UV would be everything to them, the sun emits so many different forms of radiation.

Check out 12:00 into this video, tell me this doesn’t effect the climate, these guys are crazy!

The solar experts will insist that the solar output varies only 1% at most. But Ultra Violet output varies 20% and magnetic output varies many times more. UV radicalizes 02 and N2 to create NOx and Ozone, these with the solar winds’ protons create very high altitude haze and thin ice clouds. Now with a major drop in UV output maybe I can grow more tomatoes but I’ll have to be more careful about sunburn. pg

Also realize that CO2 stores energy and causes energy to be stored as chemical energy. CO2 converts to carbonic acid, carbonates and organic mass. As it’s concentration increases so does the rate of reaction of all of these chemical phenomenon. The heating energy CO2 stores as a “greenhouse gas” (I prefer the term refrigerant) is converted to the chemical energy embodied in all of the chemistry above and more.

The sun’s total irradiance decreased from 1980 to mid-1985, remained approximately constant until mid-1987, and has recently begun to increase. This time interval covered the decrease in solar activity from the maximum of solar cycle 21 to solar minimum and the onset of cycle 22. The sun’s ultraviolet irradiance also decreased during the descending phase of cycle 21 and, like the total irradiance, is now increasing concurrently with the increase in cycle 22 activity. Although only 1 percent of the sun’s energy is emitted at ultraviolet wavelengths between 200 and 300 nanometers, the decrease in this radiation from 1 July 1981 to 30 June 1985 accounted for 19 percent of the decrease in the total irradiance over the same period.

The sun’s total irradiance decreased from 1980 to mid-1985, remained approximately constant until mid-1987, and has recently begun to increase. This time interval covered the decrease in solar activity from the maximum of solar cycle 21 to solar minimum and the onset of cycle 22. The sun’s ultraviolet irradiance also decreased during the descending phase of cycle 21 and, like the total irradiance, is now increasing concurrently with the increase in cycle 22 activity. Although only 1 percent of the sun’s energy is emitted at ultraviolet wavelengths between 200 and 300 nanometers, the decrease in this radiation from 1 July 1981 to 30 June 1985 accounted for 19 percent of the decrease in the total irradiance over the same period.

I actually went through this a bit in comments on WUWT. You really need to look at the individual bits of the UV spectrum as some stay almost flat while others just plunge. While I’ve glossed over that and generally just join everyone else in saying “UV did {foo}” in fact it does several things depending on band…

@Scarlet P.:

Interesting chart on matching stream flow to solar cycle… kind of sums it up (especially so when you figure that water was the heat trasport method to the stratosphere…)

@P.G. Sharrow:

I suspect that when we get down to looking at EXACTLY which band of UV catalyzes excactly which reactions in the upper atmosphere we will finanally “have found clue”…

Postings By Date

Prior Months; postings by date

Meta

To Donate via Paypal or Credit card

Paypal Donation Site.
To make a donation, visit Paypal at the link above and put in the email address pub4all @ aol (DOT) com (leaving out the gratuitous blanks and putting in a "." for (DOT) that is in the text here to defeat spam bots). Many thanks to all!